When I showed my wife the draft of our New Year’s card, she explained that it was a bit out of step with the “Joy, Laughter, and Lots of Love” she selected as the theme for our card. “That note comes from a place of being overwhelmed and exhausted,” she said. With tired eyes, I chuckled. She’s correct. I thought I’d share my draft message for 2024 and offer a few words of encouragement.

Here’s the version of our New Year’s message before my spousal editor got her hands on it:

In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:4-5

So, yeah, we were actually able to put together a Christmas card this year. We never know if that’s going to happen year after year. Our family cares about you, and we want you to see how we change year over year. In truth, we hope what you really see is God’s light in an increasingly dark world.

This year our family has been hard pressed on every side, but we have not been crushed. We have certainly been perplexed, but we are not in despair. At times we’ve felt persecuted, but we haven’t been abandoned. Our family has been knocked down, but not destroyed. As strange as it might sound, all of this is cause for celebration. It is the common ground of which connects so many of us and our families.

We took about a thousand family pictures to get one that doesn’t look like a brawl in a viking mead hall. We don’t want you to think we have our life together. We rejoice that we live our wild and weird life together…with you. Don’t be a stranger in 2024.

While I agree that my draft message isn’t exactly warm and fuzzy, it is both honest and optimistic.

Jesus is my family’s hope and example. God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. The greatest threat to evil in the world is sacrificial love. It wasn’t until my sons were born that I understood the depth of such affection. I shudder at the thought of giving up any of my sons, let alone for the sake of someone who hates me.

Yet God did that for me.

If there is one character in the Bible with whom I can relate, it’s the tax collector who couldn’t even lift his eyes to heaven. “God, have mercy on me, a sinner!” was the best he could muster. God sent Jesus to redeem people like the tax collector. People like me.

Over the past year, five different boys have lived in our house for various stays. My wife has fed and clothed a small army. As a therapeutic foster family, we have an ever-revolving cast of therapists, educators, doctors, and social workers coming through our door. This says nothing of the challenges facing our extended family, a particularly rough concussion for one son, and the difficult aspects of everyday life.

My family wouldn’t trade our experiences for anything.

God has given us an opportunity to shoulder the darkness threatening several young men, and we have witnessed its retreat. I’ve been privileged to coach many kids in our community. I can see them develop through adversity. My wife invests in young lives as a teacher and, on late nights where we’re both barely able to stay awake, she tells me about the progress they’re making.

Love is costly. Humbly putting the interests of others above our own runs against the grain of our modern cult of self. Our world doesn’t understand it.

Jesus was not a hapless victim. He honored God by giving himself up for us all. My family and I aren’t victims either when life is tough. We’re imperfectly trying to follow Jesus and shine his light in the darkness wherever we encounter it. We’re also encouraged by so many friends and family doing the same.

Sometimes we do feel exhausted and beaten down. It’s easy to start feeling sorry for ourselves. My family constantly needs the encouraging reminder that our stress and discomfort as parents, friends, and family is so often a sign of the critical investments we’re making in others because we love them.

So here’s to an excellent 2024. I hope you see God’s love clearly demonstrated in your life this year. As God’s love is given freely and without condition, so we should offer the same to others. My family is still working on that. Hopefully you’ll join us. That’s a message from my heart even if it doesn’t make the New Year’s card.

More Cameron Smith columns:

Smith is a recovering political attorney with four boys, two dogs, a bearded dragon, and an extremely patient wife. He’s a partner in a media company, a business strategy wonk, and a regular on talk radio. Please direct outrage or agreement to [email protected] or @DCameronSmith on X or @davidcameronsmith on Threads.

Smith is a recovering political attorney with four boys, two dogs, a bearded dragon, and an extremely patient wife. He’s a partner in a media company, a business strategy wonk, and a regular on talk radio. Please direct outrage or agreement to [email protected] or @DCameronSmith on X or @davidcameronsmith on Threads.